John Sutherland was a game writer and story doctor at Microsoft Game Studios for 14 years before leaving to form VidGameStory.com in 2010. He started his career in games working with Alexey Pajitnov, creator of Tetris, and along the way worked on the Combat Flight Simulator series, Mass Effect, and Alan Wake.

The mission of VidGameStory.com is to get the industry thinking of story in much broader terms, as conflict instead of chatter. The first article about story as conflict on Gamasutra can be found here:

Kinect is finally here, and now you can do things like dance, jump, and pet your baby tiger without a game controller. There's a dual reaction to this: it's amazing that it can be done, but is that all there is? Why there will be more...

Thanks for your thoughts on this, both of you. Kyle, I 'm sorry if I wasn 't clear, you DO get to progress, even if you lose. That 's the radical thing I 'm attempting: detaching winning from progression. r n r nMy point is, the primary satisfaction of the ...

Thanks, William, I really appreciate that UI elements like button prompts and onscreen instructions are things to avoid, I think, but there are some elements we forgive in games as part of the willing suspension of disbelief. That said, we shouldn't push it. There are never any absolute rules, but ...

You make a good point, David, and several other people here are with you: sometimes, it's more immersive to have some tactile sensation in your hands. My point was only about traditional game controllers since it's unlikely that the game story involves that very object, it's likely you'll have some ...